Our Fitness Blog

4 Tips to Hinder Holiday Weight Gain

It is that time of year again: Time for everyone to enjoy the winter holidays and spend some extra time celebrating with friends and family. This also means it is time to pay extra careful attention to our weight loss goals and perfect a strategy that will keep us on the straight and narrow path to success. It may seem as if everywhere you turn, you are faced with more and more calories.

Everyone is having a party.

Your neighbors, your friends, your family, your coworkers, your friend's coworkers and that guy down the street all seem to be getting in on the action.

So, how can you remain social and avoid all of those tempting foods at each and every holiday party you feel obligated to attend? By following a few of these tips, you may just find yourself meeting your weight loss goals in no time.

Never go to a party famished. If you wait until you get to the party to eat, you will most likely eat more than you intended, and it will probably not be an overindulgence in grilled chicken and salad! You should try to eat something healthy and filling before going to the celebration. You may indulge in a sweet or two, but if you’re only slightly hungry, you will be more likely to limit any eating binges that typically rear their ugly heads during the holidays.

Watch your beverages. Many people overindulge in alcohol and other high calorie drinks when they are at a party. These calories can sneak up on us, and we may not even notice that we are doubling or tripling our caloric intake strictly through our beverages. It may be easy to keep in mind how much food you ate, but your total drink count can seem to get a little blurry after the first few. So, if you stick to water or try rotating water in between your rounds of beverages, you’ll save yourself quite a bit of empty calories.

Bring a healthy option. If you are going to a potluck style party, you could always bring along a healthier option for you and your friends. You may have this new recipe that you have been dying to try out. Well, why not make something you love that you know is well balanced and allow your colleagues the chance to see that not all healthy treats taste like cardboard? You will not only be doing yourself a favor, but your friends can also benefit from having a healthy dish or two to choose from as well!

Distract yourself. Try to avoid making the food tables the center of your experience by choosing to talk with your friends or by dancing the night away. You do not need to hover by the food table all night. Hovering there would only put you closer to mindlessly eating treat upon treat. So, do yourself a favor and try to get in some physical activity by dancing or at least walking around the room and being the social butterfly you know you are.

During the holidays many of us can easily fall victim to a little weight gain. Temptation is everywhere, however, this time can be very detrimental to our weight loss goals if we don’t stay concentrated on our goals. Let’s make our focus be on celebrating with friends and family and not ruining our waistlines!